Guelph students among Canadian kids learning math concepts through Métis beading practices
CBC
An elementary school initiative that explores math concepts while incorporating Indigenous practices is making its way into classrooms across Canada.
The Métis-math collaboration is part of a larger collection spearheaded by mathematics education researcher Ruth Beatty of Lakehead University in 2012. It's called First Nations and Métis Math Voices.
"One of the main reasons we started this was so that First Nations students could see themselves reflected in classroom practice, particularly around math," said Beatty, an associate professor in Lakehead's faculty of education.
"We recognize that there's so much mathematics that is part of Métis cultural practices and First Nations cultural practices. So we wanted to use that as a way of contextualizing math, making it meaningful for First Nations and Métis students, but also giving other students a chance to form relationships with community partners."
The Wellington Catholic School Board recently hosted the second half of its Métis-math collaborative project at St. John Catholic Elementary School in Guelph, Ont.
Grade 6 students created bracelets using loom beading — a First Nations art form — and three Métis knowledge keepers led the class through the beading process.
During the first session in November 2023, students replicated a bracelet featuring a Métis-styled flower designed by Leslieanne Muma, one of the knowledge keepers.
On March 6, students designed their own bracelets and carried out the loom-beading exercise.
"We gave them some basic parameters of how many colours, or how many rows or coloumbs the bracelet should be," said knowledge keeper Alicia Hamilton.
"The rest was from their imagination and creativity."
Students used math concepts such as transformations, ratios and rates to plot their bracelets before physically making them.
"The neat thing about this second half is that we have changed the size of the beads, which means they have to recalculate all of their math again. We will be measuring their wrists again because it will be different," said Jennifer Parkinson, another knowledge keeper who helped the children.
"So it really reinforces everything they've been learning all year."
Hamilton added: "We even did math this morning with how many beads are in quarter teaspoon so they could come and say, 'I need two quarter teaspoons or one-eighth of a teaspoon — things like that. So it's really cool to see how you're doing math without doing math.
Ferry crossings are cancelled and over a thousand households are left without power Saturday morning, due to high winds and severe weather conditions.
Tens of thousands of Nova Scotia Power customers are waking up without power on Saturday morning after high winds and rain hit the province on Friday night.
Statistics Canada is reporting a population decrease last quarter for New Brunswick — its largest quarterly decline since the 1970s, according to an economic development consultant.
Residents clapped, danced, sang and cried in the Anishinaabe community of Kitcisakik this week when the lights were finally turned on for the first time.
A man is suing three members of a Winnipeg family and a real estate broker he alleges used his intellectual disability to financially exploit him through property deals in Canada and India, leaving him out hundreds of thousands of dollars.
When Stephanie Gamble watched her mother model the first dress she made, smiling wide and walking an imaginary runway, she knew that was what she wanted to keep doing in her life.
'Tis the season for cuddling on the couch with a cup of hot chocolate and watching holiday movies. And for people in B.C.'s Interior, that can increasingly mean seeing their home communities on display.
Every year, snowy owls spread their wings and migrate down to the Prairies, where they enjoy access to plenty of rodent prey in vast open spaces.
This month has been a busy stretch at the Upper Room Food Bank in Charlottetown.
N.W.T. Education Minister Caitlin Cleveland says she has received the final report from an independent investigation into education bodies in the Dehcho region.
P.E.I.’s auditor general says he’s concerned and disappointed that the projected deficit has doubled what government initially estimated it would be — and he's urging the province to balance its budget.
A man found not criminally responsible for stabbing five people to death at a Calgary house party is getting more freedoms but not an absolute discharge.
A man has been found guilty of second-degree murder in the shooting death of a Toronto mother outside a supervised consumption site in Leslieville.